Modelling of the soil water infiltration in crusting soil. Part II: Variable hydraulic conductivity over time

The soil crust affects significantly the soil water infiltration rate. Thus, the infiltration simulation models must somehow consider the effect of crust layer to obtain good results. The objective of this work was to evaluate the performance of the Green-Ampt-Mein-Larson (GAML) model to simulate the soil water infiltration for crusting soils. The trials were carried out in a Podzol Tb distrophic Haplic Cambisol, using a rain simulator, on a bare soil. The GAML model parameters were determined, being proposed for the hydraulic conductivity of transmission zone (Kt) value the use of Kt*, which is equal to Tie x f, where Tie is stable infiltration rate and f is a decrease factor of the Tie as a function of cumulative kinetic energy of rainfall (Ec), i.e., Kt value varying over time. The GAML model with constant Kt value over time did not provide good performance, overestimating the values of infiltration rate (Ti) in most cases, where as the use of Kt* the GAML model showed good performance, being the best results obtained by combination of Kt* with matric potential (phi(f)) values calculated by Cecilio et al. (2007) equation. The GAML model with the hydraulic conductivity in the transmission zone (Kt) value varying over time showed good results in simulation of the infiltration process in soils subjected to crusting.